THIS BLOG RATES THE S&P 500 BUY/SELL/OR HOLD EACH DAY WITH 2-GOALS FOR LONG TERM INVESTMENTS: (1) PRESERVE CAPITAL (2) BEAT THE S&P 500.
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Wednesday, August 9, 2017

“U.S. job openings jumped to a record high in June,
outpacing hiring, the latest indication that companies are having trouble
finding qualified workers. The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey,
or JOLTS, released by the Labor Department on Tuesday also underscored labor
market strength that will likely encourage the Federal Reserve to continue
tightening monetary policy….” Story at…

Repeating: The sum of my 17-Indicators is still falling
sharply on a smoothed long-term basis and has dropped into negative territory
so the indicators I track are still
getting more bearish each day.

The 10-day measure of advancing stocks was 48.7%
indicating that less than 50% of stocks on the NYSE have been advancing over
the last 10-days.That’s another bearish
sign.Advancing volume is falling too
and on a 10-day basis only 46% of the volume has been advancing. The one bullish sign today was the size of today's (Tuesday's)
down move since it may have been big enough to get some buyers too step in.

I think at this point we have to get Bearish in the short-term.

Longer-term, I’m cautiously bullish; I will worry more in
late-summer (we’re almost there) and into early fall, but I remain fully
invested. There isn’t any news now that signals a bear market and long-term
indicators remain neutral. A short-term pullback seems more likely now.

TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)

The top ranked ETF receives 100%. The rest are then
ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading ETF.While momentum isn’t stock performance per
se, momentum is closely related to stock performance. For example, over the 4-months
from Oct thru mid-February 2016, the number 1 ranked Financials (XLF) outperformed
the S&P 500 by nearly 20%.

*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see
NTSM Page at…

Today, Aerospace and Defense (ITA) remained #1. Avoid
XLE; its 120-day moving average is still falling.

SHORT-TERM TRADING PORTFOLIO - 2017 (Small-% of the
total portfolio)

I take a portion of my cash and apply it strategically to
improve returns in cash. My short-term trading has never been about
get-rich-quick.

I was stopped out of the VXX around 1100 in the
morning. Since I wasn’t able to watch the markets today (too much going on) there
was no chance to reset the position.It
looks like some further down moves may be in order.

-“In a bull market, you can only be long or neutral.”
– D. Gartman

-“The best policy is to avoid shorting unless a major
bear market is underway and downside momentum has been thoroughly established.
Even then, your timing must sometimes be perfect. In a bull market the trend is
truly your friend, and trading against the grain is usually a fool's
errand.” – Clif Droke.

-“Commandment #1:“Thou Shall Not Trade Against the Trend.” - James P. Arthur Huprich

TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

Market Internals switched
to negative on the market.

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of
current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading.
They are usually right, but they are often late.They are most useful when they diverge from
the Index.In 2014, using these internals
alone would have made a 9% return vs. 13% for the S&P 500 (in on Positive,
out on Negative – no shorting).

LONG TERM INDICATOR

Tuesday, Price is positive; Sentiment, Volume, & VIX
indicators were neutral. (With VIX
recently below 10 for a couple of days (May and June, and now July), VIX may be
prone to incorrect signals. Usually, a rising VIX is a bad market sign; now it
may move up, but that might just signal normalization of VIX, i.e., VIX and the
Index may both rise. As an indicator, VIX is out of the picture for a while.)

MY INVESTED STOCK POSITION:

TSP (RETIREMENT ACCOUNT – GOV EMPLOYEES) ALLOCATION

I increased
stock allocation to 50% stocks in the S&P 500 Index fund (C-Fund) Friday,
24 March 2017 in my long-term accounts, based on short-term indicators.
Remainder is 50% G-Fund (Government securities). This is a conservative retiree
allocation, but I consider it fully invested for my situation.

The previous signal was a
BUY on 2 June and the last actionable signal was a BUY (from a prior sell) on
15 November 2016.

Followers

About Me

I am an engineer with a lifelong interest in "playing with numbers" so what could be more fun than trying to develop a system that beats the stock market? Well, lots of things, but I decided to do this anyway.
While I am not a finance-professional, or professional investor, I have developed some skills.
I competed in two CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio contests finishing in the top 4% in 2008 (34,320th of 800,000) and the top 0.1% (448th of 500,000) in 2009. More importantly, I managed to sell out of my retirement accounts at or near the top in 2000 and 2007 and bought close enough to the bottom that I didn’t lose too much sleep. (Even Bill Gates lost SOME sleep.)
I hope that my thoughts will help you achieve your investing goals. Please remember that my ideas are free and there may be times when my ideas are worth less than what you paid.